[antihero]

Surely as the operator as a private service, you should have absolute control over what your service is used for?

Unless we want to start seeing things like Facebook and AWS as accountable public utilities.

If ICANN started blocking domains, then this would be a free speech issue.

[mytailorisrich]

> Surely as the operator as a private service, you should have absolute control over what your service is used for?

This fails to acknowledge that Twitter and Facebook are not just private services, they are de-facto global standards of communication, included for governments.

This is great for Twitter and Facebook as long as they keep a neutral stance. When they stop being neutral then governments start to reflect on their power and indeed whether they should be regulated as utilities or ditched (hence e.g. the market's reaction as seen on Twitter's stock price).

[reallydontask]

I believe that both have TOS that will get you booted out of the platform if you breach them.

This is not a free-speech issue but a de-platforming issue, it's subtle difference that seems to be lost to many people.

[mytailorisrich]

> I believe that both have TOS that will get you booted out of the platform if you breach them.

TOS written by Twitter and enforced by Twitter exactly the way Twitter decides, including against governments and heads of state? Right, exactly the point of my previous comment.

I think this is a watershed moment because "de-platforming" Trump while he is still President will be seen as a step too far that will have consequences for these platforms. Not least because they are already very much on the radar of governments.

[jp_sc]

What about VISA?

[syshum]

What about is verisign or Dohnuts or one of the other big registry "private companies" start blocking domains?

I dont think that has happened yet, but I am sure it is just a matter of time, I see no logical or legal reason they would not face the same public pressure that AWS did for hosting Parlar as an example, what is stopping Verisign from delisting Parlar.com from the global .com registar